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Emerging Tech
fails to address the trust issue. “People feel that the system is rigged against them, that numbers are meaningless, and that essentially we can come up with anything,” that participant said. Therefore, when citizens want to know what blockchain means for them, agencies should say, “‘You can open the data. You can close it. You can do whatever you want with it, but block- chain has the potential to ensure that it is trusted and traceable.’”
Another participant added that blockchain could also help tackle fraud, waste and abuse and potentially eliminate the billions of dollars’ worth of improper payments the govern- ment makes each year.
The sky’s the limit
One participant noted that the discus- sion had focused on only a small part of what blockchain could do. Beyond simplifying administrative activities, blockchain could play a role in the internet of things and create trusted environments far beyond the con nes of the U.S.
“We could have Airbnb on space- craft where you can share spacecraft with other nations because you are in a partially trusted environment. Can we share a satellite with Germany and we use it sometimes, they use it sometimes?” He predicted that such consolidation and shared resources could happen in the next 10 years with the help of blockchain.
Another participant said the use
of the technology can be divided into two orientations. “One is the mis-
sion orientation and how we apply blockchain in a situation where we’re serving our customers. There are also our internal operations, which we spend a lot of time trying to re ne and improve. They’re very different use cases. We need to tease that out from all the excitement about ‘Blockchain’s going to remake the world.’ OK, how’s it going to help me with my open data? How’s it going to help me with my compliance issues?”
A third executive agreed and
cautioned against jumping ahead too quickly: “In the last 15 minutes, we’ve talked about how blockchain is going to improve unemployment bene ts, Airbnb for spacecraft, medical health records, trust in government.
And yet our audience does not understand what blockchain is at
all. We’ve got to slow down a little bit and focus on education because
a lot of us have heard this before. The internet was going to do this and then the cloud.”
One participant offered this advice: “You have to pick a business process that someone’s going to bene t from. It’s really easy to understand when you show a live demo, but theoretical- ly talking about blockchain, it’s almost
impossible to explain. If it’s not going to impact people, if it’s never going
to touch them or make their lives easier, then they could care less. What they’re excited about is the redesign of their user interface and the fact that they have full transparency. They do not care what is powering that at all.”
Participants concurred that the
key challenge is blockchain’s subtlety. “When you invest in a new website, you see the website. You see the rede- sign,” one executive said. “With block- chain, when it works, people are just going to know their day went better. No one says, ‘Wow, that process really went well.’ That’s the added challenge: If it’s a great success, people won’t know they’re using blockchain.” n
PERSPECTIVES
Participants
Combiz Abdolrahimi
Senior Policy Adviser, Department of the Treasury
Vincent Annunziato
Director,TradeTransformation Of ce, Cargo, Control and Release/International Trade Data Systems, Of ce ofTrade, Customs and Border Protection
Jose Arrieta
Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Department of Health and Human Services
Debbie Bucci
IT Architect, Standards, Implementation andTesting Division, Of ce of Standards and Interoperability, Of ce of the National Coordinator for Health IT, Department of Health and Human Services
Craig Fischer
Innovation Program Manager, Of ce of Financial Innovation andTransformation, Bureau of the Fiscal Service, Department of theTreasury
Mark Fisk
Partner, Blockchain Leader, Global Business Services, Public Service, IBM
Justin Herman
Program Lead, U.S. Emerging CitizenTechnology Atlas,Technology Transformation Service, Federal Acquisition Service, General Services Administration
John Hill
Assistant Commissioner, Of ce of Financial Innovation andTransformation, Bureau of the Fiscal Service, Department of theTreasury
James Holbein
Director, Of ce ofTariff Affairs andTrade Agreements, U.S. InternationalTrade Commission
Sharon Leu
Senior Policy Adviser for Higher Education Innovation, Department of Education
Daniel Mandl
Senior Computer Engineer, NASA
Adewale Omoniyi
Senior Managing Consultant, Cyber Security and Biometrics Service Line, Global Business Services, Public Service, IBM
Shue-Jane L.Thompson
Vice President and Partner, Cyber Security and Biometrics, Global Business Services, IBM
Jeremy Wood
Director of Enterprise Architecture, Millennium Challenge Corp.
Note: FCW Editor-in-ChiefTroy K. Schneider led the roundtable discussion. The Nov. 8, 2017, gathering was underwritten by IBM, but both the substance of the discussion and the recap on these pages are strictly editorial products. Neither IBM nor any of the roundtable participants had input beyond their Nov. 8 comments.
20 January/February 2018 FCW.COM